so I’m designing a campaign that I will play in a year or so.
Its set in Ravenloft but a homebrew domain of dread. The main villain is a lich named Vrazcol. He has a big castle with an even bigger dungeon underneath.
I am needing creative phylactery ideas because I don’t want it to be undiscoverable (such as a single hollow brick in a wall) or too easy (like a glass jar).
My favourite phylactary was a copper coin that is also enchanted with Nystuls Magical Aura, Nystuls Magical Aura changes the coins aura so Detect Magic does not reveal it. The blurb for the Lich in the Monster Manual only says the phylactary has to be on the same plane as the Lich in order for the lIch to feed souls to it, there isn't anything about the Lich needing to touch it whilst casting the Imprisonment spell.
So the Lich creates the copper coin phylactary and sends it out into the world, it gets passed from hand to hand, merchant to merchant and the odds of a copper coin suddenly being sent to another plane is very small. The Lich can always scry on it if needed and if it falls into the hands of adventuring types that might go Plane hopping then the Lich can teleport to it and retrieve it or send its minions out to steal it.
Could be a good little puzzle for the party to solve, the wake up and find they've been robbed but only the copper pieces were stolen or they get hit by a Dispel Magic and they discover a magical coin suddenly appears in their purse etc.
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I'd say that the "special component" as part of the Imprisonment in the lich's case is the phylactery, therefore it must be touched by the lich when casting it. If a DM wants to allow the phylactery to be anywhere on the material plane, then the lich wouldn't allow the coin into circulation. Instead they would bury it half a mile deep, and build their fortress over it. With nobody but the lich knowing what happened to it, there is essentially no way to ever find it. But as I say, they need it for the spell by a reasonable interpretation.
In terms of it being a coin, a phylactery "can take the form of any item possessing an interior space" so unfortunately a coin doesn't work.
In these circumstances I tend to think "What would I make my phylactery, if I were a lich?"
"A phylactery is traditionally an amulet in the shape of a small box, but it can take the form of any item possessing an interior space into which arcane sigils of naming, binding, immortality, and dark magic are scribed in silver."
Something innocuous but hard to damage sounds like a good idea, so what's super hard to break? I'd make mine a nearly solid cube or sphere or solid iron, but I'd make it enormous (impossible for almost anything to move it) with a trapdoor allowing access into it, then bury it and have just a tiny bit peeking out of the ground in a heavily defended location. Also might as well flood the area above it, impose permanent magical Darkness and other effects around it, and load it up with arcane wards.
I conceed that the copper coin isn't an intended phylactary (edit: its more of harry potter style horcrux) but it does make for an interesting game.
Given that this game would be in a Domain of Dread there is however no reason why the dark powers behind it have not done some shennigans with it such as change it shape/form so it is hidden form the Lich and he/she/it? has to keep going out to find it only to find it disappears again, or possibly a slightly more poetically macabre note, maybe the domain of dread is actually located inside the phylactary and the residents in it are all copies of people that have been subjected to an imprisonment spell and the Lich is unaware of it and not only believes his phylactary is lost but lives in constant fear and trying to locate it.
I like the idea of having the phylactery protected, but far from obvious. I dislike the idea of having it on the lair, as what is the point of having a get of jail free card, if it's gonna be in your fridge, right?
Maybe a hollow ruby box inside a cadver collector that roams some desolated lands of the plane. The cadaver collector only responds to a password that only the lich knows
You can hype the place where the collector is by having NPCs warning the player’s to never go there.
Maybe the lich is wicked narcissistic and has a whole bunch of statues of himself all over the place. Everything from life-size to rpg figurine size. And there are so many that the players will just assume that the guy's some kind of nutcase. But one of them is actually his phylactery. So it's a combination of "hiding in plain sight" and figuring out which one is the right one if they ever do figure out the catch.
I like the idea of having the phylactery protected, but far from obvious. I dislike the idea of having it on the lair, as what is the point of having a get of jail free card, if it's gonna be in your fridge, right?
You become a lich, one of, if not the most powerful being in all the land.
"Here Bob, look after this phylactery for me... Yes I know you live in Vermont... No, I won't be able to help you if adventurers come looking for it... Why don't I protect it myself? Seriously Bob..."
The ideal is to have it hidden, but somewhere that the lich can defend it. It also needs to be close enough that the lich can feed souls to it when they need to.
I like the idea of having the phylactery protected, but far from obvious. I dislike the idea of having it on the lair, as what is the point of having a get of jail free card, if it's gonna be in your fridge, right?
You become a lich, one of, if not the most powerful being in all the land.
"Here Bob, look after this phylactery for me... Yes I know you live in Vermont... No, I won't be able to help you if adventurers come looking for it... Why don't I protect it myself? Seriously Bob..."
The ideal is to have it hidden, but somewhere that the lich can defend it. It also needs to be close enough that the lich can feed souls to it when they need to.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I just think that if you're the guardian of your own immortality, that makes you mortal af.
And gamewise, I think it's fun. If you wanna be realistic about it, there is no reason for anyone to ever find a super genius lich phylactery, honestly. Hide it miles underground with the only access being a permanent teleportation circle that only the lich knows exists, with no written records of it, with a simulacrum protecting it.
Besides, a cadaver collector with a bunch of specters is generally a great deterrent for any player incursion on the place he is in, if there is no reason or quest to go after it. And the lich can easily access anything on his plane of existence anyway.
But if adventurers were looking for it, the first place they'd look would be the giant fortress surrounded by magical darkness, its better for something to be innocuous.
Magically anchored at the centre of a teleportation circle, which is covered in sand to make it invisible, with a glyph of warding to activate it if anyone tries to touch the phylactery.
Teleporting where? could be to the Lich for a showdown, could be to the centre of an active volcano, to the bottom of the ocean...
More important than "how would a Lich make their phylactery ungettable" is "How do you make it fun for the players". Do you want it to be a n identification game, with hundreds of potential phylacteries? Do you want it to be a classic dungeon with the phylactery buried within? Do you want it to be a worldwide hunt?
What if the Lich made the phylactery undetectable, and then it was lost - someone in the world is wearing is as an heirloom, and one day, they will be transformed. Maybe the Lich works to get their phylactery into the hands of those in power, and then when they die, they possess the body of the one closest, rather than getting a new body made. It would certainly make for a challenge, but would need an established king/queen figure to be possessed. The party fights the Lich, fails to find the phylactery, and the king turns weird. Whilst they quest for a way to find the phylactery, the king starts changing their laws, becoming more evil, summoning mages who are never seen again. And when they finally find the phylactery finder, they find it's in the castle vaults, and now they have to break into there.
If a pylactery should be hollow, maybe the helmet of a suit of armour in the castle. Maybe they have it on their cat's collar, like the galaxy in Men In Black. Maybe it's a priceless heirloom which is on display in the worlds most secure museum - imagine National Treasure but with the goal of getting it, then trying to work out how to destroy it, whilst evading the FBI (Fantasy-Bureau of Inteligence).
In short, what sort of game do you want - then it'll be easier to pick a good phylactery!
An artificial heart if the kings daughter. As long as souls are pumped in, the princess will live, and the lich will remain, well a lich. Maybe not the kings daughter but someone else who the lich "helped" prior to lichdom. Course this is just a suggestion, take what you will.
As this thread has risen from the grave I'll recommend a series of vdeos on youtube by Pointy Hat. The series starts with "The problem with Liches" and then has a few more episodes where he gives different classes a dose of Lichdom. I thought they were rather interesting ways of looking at Liches, especially his take on a Barbarian Lich.
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* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
Pointy hat is a good series and he does a good job of opening up what a lich can be. I don't necessarily love them all but they're all pretty interesting and can give you some ideas. For example some of his lichs have concepts an emotions as their phylactery. Like the memory of the song or a long held grudge. He makes a good point that magical power is most easily written as an analogy for real world kinds of power and so magical immortality can be exaggerated or analogized forms of real world " immortality". For example memory, blood lines, rage and trauma, or artifice. Just keep in mind that less tangible things like rage are allot harder to destroy and represent a different kind of story to the LOTR style throw the ring into mordor. You can do it but for example in the case of the barbarian lich from pointy hat because it's power is rage and cycles of revenge, killing it is a failure and results in the creation of a new lich.
In terms of picking a physical phylactery it's form should have meaning. Allot of people will suggest trick options that no one would guess but random unpredictable choices don't make a good mystery. There needs to be clues and the phylactery should be something personal to the lich. Some options include
A pet, alive, dead or undead.
A painting. It can be the entire painting or an object hidden in it.
A place. Something highly personal like a rune carved into a tree or a giant magic circle
Some one important. A chosen one like figure like the town seer or an old enemy. Alternatively friends or family members of the lich.
A monster. Possibly an old enemy slain
A book holding secrets.
A sentimental object like a locket
A defiled object. Something that is significance to others that has been corrupted. A holy symbol, hero's weapon or protective ward
You can also combine some of these. For example a parasitic monster infecting some one or transforming one object to appear as another.
what if the domain of dread has a dam, holding back the sea. that's the phylactery. they cant kill the lich without drowning the entire domain. muahahahahahha!
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Race: Not Human. that's for sure
Class: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes/general of the goose horde
Alignment: Lawful Evil
fun fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
what if the domain of dread has a dam, holding back the sea. that's the phylactery. they cant kill the lich without drowning the entire domain. muahahahahahha!
Honestly, thats great. It works best if the lich had something to do with building the dam but otherwise perfect. Throw an undead sea monster in the reservoir for good measure.
An artificial heart if the kings daughter. As long as souls are pumped in, the princess will live, and the lich will remain, well a lich. Maybe not the kings daughter but someone else who the lich "helped" prior to lichdom. Course this is just a suggestion, take what you will.
An artificial heart if the kings daughter. As long as souls are pumped in, the princess will live, and the lich will remain, well a lich. Maybe not the kings daughter but someone else who the lich "helped" prior to lichdom. Course this is just a suggestion, take what you will.
I Like this idea a lot. thank you
No problem, always glad to hear people like my ideas.
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so I’m designing a campaign that I will play in a year or so.
Its set in Ravenloft but a homebrew domain of dread. The main villain is a lich named Vrazcol. He has a big castle with an even bigger dungeon underneath.
I am needing creative phylactery ideas because I don’t want it to be undiscoverable (such as a single hollow brick in a wall) or too easy (like a glass jar).
Can somebody give me ideas?
My favourite phylactary was a copper coin that is also enchanted with Nystuls Magical Aura, Nystuls Magical Aura changes the coins aura so Detect Magic does not reveal it. The blurb for the Lich in the Monster Manual only says the phylactary has to be on the same plane as the Lich in order for the lIch to feed souls to it, there isn't anything about the Lich needing to touch it whilst casting the Imprisonment spell.
So the Lich creates the copper coin phylactary and sends it out into the world, it gets passed from hand to hand, merchant to merchant and the odds of a copper coin suddenly being sent to another plane is very small. The Lich can always scry on it if needed and if it falls into the hands of adventuring types that might go Plane hopping then the Lich can teleport to it and retrieve it or send its minions out to steal it.
Could be a good little puzzle for the party to solve, the wake up and find they've been robbed but only the copper pieces were stolen or they get hit by a Dispel Magic and they discover a magical coin suddenly appears in their purse etc.
I'd say that the "special component" as part of the Imprisonment in the lich's case is the phylactery, therefore it must be touched by the lich when casting it. If a DM wants to allow the phylactery to be anywhere on the material plane, then the lich wouldn't allow the coin into circulation. Instead they would bury it half a mile deep, and build their fortress over it. With nobody but the lich knowing what happened to it, there is essentially no way to ever find it. But as I say, they need it for the spell by a reasonable interpretation.
In terms of it being a coin, a phylactery "can take the form of any item possessing an interior space" so unfortunately a coin doesn't work.
In these circumstances I tend to think "What would I make my phylactery, if I were a lich?"
"A phylactery is traditionally an amulet in the shape of a small box, but it can take the form of any item possessing an interior space into which arcane sigils of naming, binding, immortality, and dark magic are scribed in silver."
Something innocuous but hard to damage sounds like a good idea, so what's super hard to break? I'd make mine a nearly solid cube or sphere or solid iron, but I'd make it enormous (impossible for almost anything to move it) with a trapdoor allowing access into it, then bury it and have just a tiny bit peeking out of the ground in a heavily defended location. Also might as well flood the area above it, impose permanent magical Darkness and other effects around it, and load it up with arcane wards.
I conceed that the copper coin isn't an intended phylactary (edit: its more of harry potter style horcrux) but it does make for an interesting game.
Given that this game would be in a Domain of Dread there is however no reason why the dark powers behind it have not done some shennigans with it such as change it shape/form so it is hidden form the Lich and he/she/it? has to keep going out to find it only to find it disappears again, or possibly a slightly more poetically macabre note, maybe the domain of dread is actually located inside the phylactary and the residents in it are all copies of people that have been subjected to an imprisonment spell and the Lich is unaware of it and not only believes his phylactary is lost but lives in constant fear and trying to locate it.
I like the idea of having the phylactery protected, but far from obvious. I dislike the idea of having it on the lair, as what is the point of having a get of jail free card, if it's gonna be in your fridge, right?
Maybe a hollow ruby box inside a cadver collector that roams some desolated lands of the plane. The cadaver collector only responds to a password that only the lich knows
You can hype the place where the collector is by having NPCs warning the player’s to never go there.
Maybe the lich is wicked narcissistic and has a whole bunch of statues of himself all over the place. Everything from life-size to rpg figurine size. And there are so many that the players will just assume that the guy's some kind of nutcase. But one of them is actually his phylactery. So it's a combination of "hiding in plain sight" and figuring out which one is the right one if they ever do figure out the catch.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Tayn of Darkwood. Human Life Cleric. Lvl 10.
It’s inside a log in the fireplace that’s enchanted to have a continual flame on it. Added value put it in the inn or taverns fire place
You become a lich, one of, if not the most powerful being in all the land.
"Here Bob, look after this phylactery for me... Yes I know you live in Vermont... No, I won't be able to help you if adventurers come looking for it... Why don't I protect it myself? Seriously Bob..."
The ideal is to have it hidden, but somewhere that the lich can defend it. It also needs to be close enough that the lich can feed souls to it when they need to.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I just think that if you're the guardian of your own immortality, that makes you mortal af.
And gamewise, I think it's fun. If you wanna be realistic about it, there is no reason for anyone to ever find a super genius lich phylactery, honestly. Hide it miles underground with the only access being a permanent teleportation circle that only the lich knows exists, with no written records of it, with a simulacrum protecting it.
Besides, a cadaver collector with a bunch of specters is generally a great deterrent for any player incursion on the place he is in, if there is no reason or quest to go after it. And the lich can easily access anything on his plane of existence anyway.
But if adventurers were looking for it, the first place they'd look would be the giant fortress surrounded by magical darkness, its better for something to be innocuous.
Magically anchored at the centre of a teleportation circle, which is covered in sand to make it invisible, with a glyph of warding to activate it if anyone tries to touch the phylactery.
Teleporting where? could be to the Lich for a showdown, could be to the centre of an active volcano, to the bottom of the ocean...
More important than "how would a Lich make their phylactery ungettable" is "How do you make it fun for the players". Do you want it to be a n identification game, with hundreds of potential phylacteries? Do you want it to be a classic dungeon with the phylactery buried within? Do you want it to be a worldwide hunt?
What if the Lich made the phylactery undetectable, and then it was lost - someone in the world is wearing is as an heirloom, and one day, they will be transformed. Maybe the Lich works to get their phylactery into the hands of those in power, and then when they die, they possess the body of the one closest, rather than getting a new body made. It would certainly make for a challenge, but would need an established king/queen figure to be possessed. The party fights the Lich, fails to find the phylactery, and the king turns weird. Whilst they quest for a way to find the phylactery, the king starts changing their laws, becoming more evil, summoning mages who are never seen again. And when they finally find the phylactery finder, they find it's in the castle vaults, and now they have to break into there.
If a pylactery should be hollow, maybe the helmet of a suit of armour in the castle. Maybe they have it on their cat's collar, like the galaxy in Men In Black. Maybe it's a priceless heirloom which is on display in the worlds most secure museum - imagine National Treasure but with the goal of getting it, then trying to work out how to destroy it, whilst evading the FBI (Fantasy-Bureau of Inteligence).
In short, what sort of game do you want - then it'll be easier to pick a good phylactery!
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An artificial heart if the kings daughter. As long as souls are pumped in, the princess will live, and the lich will remain, well a lich. Maybe not the kings daughter but someone else who the lich "helped" prior to lichdom. Course this is just a suggestion, take what you will.
the dungeon below the castle.
Race: Not Human. that's for sure
Class: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes/general of the goose horde
Alignment: Lawful Evil
fun fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
King Of TVs.
As this thread has risen from the grave I'll recommend a series of vdeos on youtube by Pointy Hat. The series starts with "The problem with Liches" and then has a few more episodes where he gives different classes a dose of Lichdom. I thought they were rather interesting ways of looking at Liches, especially his take on a Barbarian Lich.
Pointy hat is a good series and he does a good job of opening up what a lich can be. I don't necessarily love them all but they're all pretty interesting and can give you some ideas. For example some of his lichs have concepts an emotions as their phylactery. Like the memory of the song or a long held grudge. He makes a good point that magical power is most easily written as an analogy for real world kinds of power and so magical immortality can be exaggerated or analogized forms of real world " immortality". For example memory, blood lines, rage and trauma, or artifice. Just keep in mind that less tangible things like rage are allot harder to destroy and represent a different kind of story to the LOTR style throw the ring into mordor. You can do it but for example in the case of the barbarian lich from pointy hat because it's power is rage and cycles of revenge, killing it is a failure and results in the creation of a new lich.
In terms of picking a physical phylactery it's form should have meaning. Allot of people will suggest trick options that no one would guess but random unpredictable choices don't make a good mystery. There needs to be clues and the phylactery should be something personal to the lich. Some options include
You can also combine some of these. For example a parasitic monster infecting some one or transforming one object to appear as another.
what if the domain of dread has a dam, holding back the sea. that's the phylactery. they cant kill the lich without drowning the entire domain. muahahahahahha!
Race: Not Human. that's for sure
Class: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes/general of the goose horde
Alignment: Lawful Evil
fun fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
King Of TVs.
Honestly, thats great. It works best if the lich had something to do with building the dam but otherwise perfect. Throw an undead sea monster in the reservoir for good measure.
I Like this idea a lot. thank you
No problem, always glad to hear people like my ideas.